The best Criterion box sets like “Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project” and “Dekalog” serve as film classes that people can take at home. These are sets that you can spend days with, not just revisiting classic films but dissecting and learning about them in a way that makes not only these movies more interesting but can impact the way you view all cinema. This is one of the best Blu-ray box sets of the year.

I found Blonde Venus a bit of a let-down. Some lovely cinematography -- but much more plot-heavy than its 3 predecessors. And I just don't have any sort of positive response to Herbert Marshall (here or anywhere else -- including Trouble in Paradise). Looking forward to the last two. And the ending struck me as remarkably perfunctory.

As an aside, Sternberg's vision of "New Orleans" struck me as genuinely weird.

I found Blonde Venus a bit of a let-down. Some lovely cinematography -- but much more plot-heavy than its 3 predecessors. And I just don't have any sort of positive response to Herbert Marshall (here or anywhere else -- including Trouble in Paradise). Looking forward to the last two. And the ending struck me as remarkably perfunctory.

As an aside, Sternberg's vision of "New Orleans" struck me as genuinely weird.

I've never seen Dishonored, but Blonde Venus is the one I found weakest as well when I watched the Dietrich Glamour Collection. In fact I can barely remember it except for that last scene!

As an aside, Sternberg's vision of "New Orleans" struck me as genuinely weird.

You can replace "New Orleans" with just about anything and I think this would hold!

Blonde Venus has some of the most memorable scenes, moments, and iconic images of their collaboration, but it's perhaps a bit less than the sum of its parts. Along with The Scarlet Empress it's certainly the one that has sustained the most commentary from feminist film scholars, though!

Michael, do you not like Marshall in The Little Foxes? That's a poignant performance if ever I saw one....

Disappointed by Scarlet Empress. I thought this was basically a big dumb Hollywood spectacular, albeit with incredible (in multiple senses) art direction and impressive cinematography. I found it historically beyond stupid and dramatically unimpressive. Dietrich seems to have been mostly wasted in her part here. Its hard for me to reconcile this with Sternberg's other films. Overall, I strongly preferred the first 3 Sternberg-Dietrich Hollywood collaborations. (Nice 1971 interview of Dietrich as an extra on this disc, however).

Thought Morocco was really really dull, though the musical numbers were enjoyable and the shabby set for much of the film was the star of the show. Also, one of the shining early examples of carefree onscreen cuckoldry I've ever seen - Adolphe Menjou is the apple of Dietrich's eye for what, 20 seconds?

Morocco is definitely the most static of the suite; he basically quadruples his camera movements thereafter and discards with male leads.

Dishonored is the one I keep returning to, though. I hadn't seen it before this set as it seems the odd one out when people discuss these films (I'm likely wrong, but Michael Kerpan's above comment seems the first mention of the film in this thread). Empress is a staggering masterpiece, but Dishonored is just straight-up fun. For portions of the film, Dietrich feels like she barely wants to be in the movie even as she's commanding it, there's an all-timer cinematic cat (in a medium that skews toward the more on-cue dogs), Dietrich in disguise as a dimwitted peasant maid, and that glorious, glorious ending that absolutely engorged me with glee. This is probably the one I'll show to those who haven't seen a Dietrich/von Sternberg film before.